Buhari: Jonathan lacks capacity to end insecurity

The National Leader of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari, declared yesterday that President Goodluck Jonathan’s handling of the security challenges in the country has shown that his government lacked the capacity to deal with the crisis.

The violence, the former military leader said, is pushing the country towards anarchy hence the need for well meaning Nigerians to step in immediately with a view to saving the country from going under.

Buhari who was the Presidential candidate of the CPC in the 2011 elections, spoke at the party’s national convention in Abuja to ratify the planned fusion of the CPC, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) into All Progressive Congress (APC).

He said, “Anarchy is knocking on the door of many sections of this country and the Federal Government has not demonstrated that it has the good sense to understand what is going on, or the competence to check it.”

“The nation is hopelessly adrift. But, if we are to survive, this vicious circle of violence that has engulfed this nation must be brought to an end; and we implore the National Assembly to take the lead in this quest for peace.

“The government has failed in almost everything. It has proved unable to secure the nation’s internal environment: there is widespread and rising poverty and unemployment across the length and breadth of the country. There is spiralling lawlessness all over the country. There is a complete and total decline in the quality of social services and an irremediable dilapidation in the nation’s socio-economic infrastructure across board.”

He said the patience of Nigerians and the constituent parts has been severely tried and stretched to its limits and citizens now owe it a duty to salvage the situation.

On the planned merger of the parties, he said: “Many political analysts have long stated that the only way to stabilise the country is for opposition parties to merge and oust the ruling PDP.

“This is a historic moment when several different political parties have resolved to come together to change Nigeria for the better and stop the mindless drift that has been going on for the last 14years. We must understand and accept that we are here gathered to make history or forever stand accused and condemned by it.”

Buhari emphasised that the only way to stabilise Nigeria is for the opposition parties to merge and oust the ruling PDP.

The parties in the merger are coming in as equals, he said, and have resolved that henceforth all votes must count.

The National Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande, who also addressed the convention, spoke of APC’s determination to save the country from PDP’s poor governance.

He said: “We are, however, not unaware of the huge challenges we would face in this endeavour, and the series of minefields we are to cross in our common resolve to rescue this country from total collapse. It is against this backdrop, that we are gathered here today as we did in Lagos to fulfil one of the requirements under the law to actualise our coming together under a single political platform – All Progressives Congress (APC).

“We have heard the Macedonian call of our people and we have set sail on an irreversible course to contest and assume power at the centre. Our undying quest to refocus and, possibly, to re-fix this massively endowed but hugely debased country has made us to set aside our individual interests for a larger national one. For every PDP’s years of the locust, we are offering, in exchange, a new regime of prosperity, fiscal discipline, security and a more emancipated society.

“For about a decade and a half, since the People’s Democratic Party came to power, the development of this country has been arrested and almost stalled. Their strange institutionalised style of governance has engendered a general sense of hopelessness, despondency and inertia among the citizenry.

“In just the same way as the entire democratic space has been fouled with fraud, leadership failure and high level insecurity, our social and economic management has been constricted through unbridled corruption and widespread poverty in the face of enhanced revenue earnings to such an extent that the strata of the Nigerian society too has been engulfed in mutual suspicion and fractured with national disunity.

“This coalition of progressively minded leaders represents a major shift in Nigeria’s political paradigm. As leaders, and indeed, as political parties, we are convinced, beyond any shadow of doubts, that Nigerians deserve a better country.”

Governor Raji Fashola of Lagos State was optimistic that APC would defeat PDP in 2015 and urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to shun bias in considering the application of APC for registration.

His Ogun State counterpart, Ibikunle Amosun, spoke along the same line, saying INEC should be just in handling the APC application, while Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo asked for the support of the generality of Nigerians for the party.

The running mate to General Buhari in the 2011 Presidential Election, Pastor Tunde Bakare, warned the government against any attempt to truncate the current democratic dispensation in the country as the APC is ready to defeat the PDP in 2015.

Bakare moved the motion for CPC to dissolve and merge with three other opposition parties to form APC. The National Legal Adviser, Abubakar Malami, seconded the motion while Alhaji Yahaya Sule Hamman moved the motion urging the convention to adopt a resolution to approve the merger agreements.

The motions were approved.

At the Gusau convention of the ANPP it was shouts of ‘Change’ as the 6054 delegates mandated the party leadership to go ahead with the plan to fuse into the APC.

The ANPP National Chairman, Chief Ogbonanya Onu, said it was time for the ruling PDP to start preparation to go into opposition in 2015.

Like Gen. Buhari, he also deplored the present socio-economic situation in the country.

His words: “As I look around I do not like what I see. The signs are troubling, the situation on ground is worrisome, light and darkness have no meeting points, poverty has crippled the country, and high rate of unemployment, the ruling party has plunged the masses into high rate of insecurity.

“For 15 years Nigeria has not known peace and we are not at war as innocent citizens are being killed day and night as justice has become a scarce commodity.”

He said despite Nigeria’s abundant resources, the people have remained poor.

Promises are made and yet the same promises are broken thing, he said, adding that the situation has degenerated to this level because “we allow a dominant one party system in the political system, as monopoly in politics is completely unacceptable. It increases decay, scuttles competition, strangulates innovation and weakens creativity.”

Onu said the merger has come to strengthen the unity of the country so that different ethnic and religious groups can come together and salvage the country.

The Chairman of the organising committee and the host governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, said the coming together of the CPC, ACN, and ANPP is to end the dictatorship at the centre.

At the convention were the Presidential candidate of ACN in 2011, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and Governors Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) and Rauf Aregbesola (Osun).

Chief Fani-Kayode in a statement on the merger said it “provides hope for Nigeria and it represents the only vehicle and platform that can deliver our nation from the hands of the PDP and the Jonathan administration.”

He added: “I salute those that have found the courage to stand up against the tyranny, blackmail, pettiness and incompetence of the Jonathan administration and I, together with millions of others, stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their quest to restore and resurrect the fortunes of our country. The various resolutions to merge into one new party is a first step in the right direction.”